Two Foxes, Three Farmers, One Moral, and (maybe) No Context

Henryson's fables have brought to mind two popular texts that draw on the fabular tradition. First, there is Roald Dahl's excellent book (you could easily do it in an afternoon over the holidays) Fantastic Mr. Fox. In this tale an iteration of Renard must defend his family and a host of other burrowing creatures from three vengeful farmers. With the help of rabbits, beavers, and other digging creatures, Mr. Fox manages to burrow from one farm to the next, stealing choice morsels on his way.

It is highly entertaining, and philologically interesting. For instance, the names of the farmers are laden with significance. Boggis, a chicken farmer, is the biggest and fattest of the farmers; coincidentally, his name is simply "boggish" minus the "h", which means "baggy". Bean is a tall, thin apple farmer, constantly swigging from a jug of cider (he basically lives on fermented juice). MED definition two for "bean" reads "the weight of a bean; something of little value." Bean, being barely there, weighs about what his namesake indicates. Bunce is a short, hot-tempered farmer, not unlike Yosemite Sam. What's interesting about Bunce is that his name means "bonus" (get it: small "bonus"? As in, "small surplus"?), but it can also mean "buns", as in "bread", like the food that Mr. Fox and company are stealing from him. So Roald Dahl has his hand on the pulse of the fabular tradition.

Nickel Creek recorded a song, "The Fox", on their first album, Nickel Creek, which became for them a staple for every show because of its popularity. The storyline basically goes that a fox goes out on the town, steals the grey goose from the farmer's pen, and carries it home to his family who feast on it gleefully. The end. It's a delightful little song with a catchy tune, which explains its popularity.

The down-side to these texts is simply their lack of complexity. Henryson's fables, especially his assignment of animal essences, are much more subtle than their modern counterparts. The moral of both of these texts is very simple: "Farmers are not foxes, and should not try to outfox foxes." I wonder if this lack of profundity indicates a general lack of context for fables in our current milieu, with a concomitant inability to decipher the symbolism. It seems reasonable that in a postmodern age, especially in an urban context, we are detached from the behaviors of the animal kingdom (squirrels and rats might be the exceptions). Did modernity signal the demise of the fable?

"The Taill of the Paddok and the Mous" and "Journey to the West"

There is an interesting parallel between Henryson's fable of the "The Paddok and the Mous" to one of the adventures in a Chinese classic titled Journey to the West. In that section, the main characters are the four monks in search of the Holy Scripture of Buddha. There is one master monk, and the other three have been some sort of supernatural creatures prone to mischief, and have been tamed to protect the master monk on this quest. Two of the supernatural creatures are animalistic (a monkey and a pig).

On the way to the holy land, these four get a ride down Heaven River on the back of a giant white turtle. Their trip there is smooth. As payment, the turtle asks the monk to ask Buddha the secret to losing his shell, so he could be human. If I remember correctly, the monks forget to ask Buddha this question. On the way back, the white turtle comes to bear them back. When they are on his back, it is revealed that they have forgotten to ask for him, so the turtle gets angry and shakes them off. Luckily, they survived, but the rolls of scripture were drenched, and the time that it takes to dry them leads them into more trouble.

The paddock and the white turtle seem to be similar conduits in that, no matter the intention of the apparent friendliness, the motivation is always selfish. And it seems that in literature, when the protagonist fully trusts another with life or spiritual salvation, the trust seems to call for questioning. Is this a pessimistic view of the necessity of self-reliance?

Against Nature?

Looking at all the fables we’ve read so far, there seems to be some back and forth over the idea of going against nature. In different versions of The Cock and the Jasp, the cock is praised both for recognizing the value of the jasp, which doesn’t fit his nature as a bird (obviously) and for recognizing that it is not what he, as a bird, needs or should be looking for, which does fit his nature. The fact that this is the first fable in more than one collection and that this question is central to the fable’s moral, whichever way it comes down, definitely indicates that this was an important question to writers at the time. In that light, I found it really interesting that in the version of The Fox and the Wolf that we’re reading for Monday, the wolf describes himself as evil for biting thousands of sheep. Isn’t that what wolves do? How is that evil?

It seems like, in some fables, the animals are judged based on how well they live up to the expectations of that particular animal –i.e. the cock in some versions of the story, the wedder that gets killed for pretending to be a dog, and so on. In others, they are judged as people and given almost ridiculously human characteristics – I couldn’t get over the mouse in The Mouse and the Paddock having no horse to ride across the river (what a crazy image!) and asking for a priest while drowning in the river. This may be a discussion that took place in class on one of the days I was late – I know I missed some discussion of the difference between beast epic and Aesopian fables – but I wonder if this is a difference between the two types of fables (in beast epics, animals are judged as humans and Christians, and in Aesop’s fables, they are judged as animals) or if it is a little more complicated. I don’t know if I would call The Fox and the Wolf a beast epic, at least not completely, because the animals do display some animal-like characteristics and the wolf interacts with humans.

It may not be a significant difference – maybe just two different styles of fable-telling – but I couldn’t help noticing it in this case in particular. Poor wolf.

Henryson and Perrault

Henryson’s moralitas for his fables keep reminding my of Charles Perrault’s morals for his fairy tales, so I thought I’d share one. Perrault tells many of the more "traditional" versions of fairy tales (though what is a "traditional" fairy tale is another line of discussion all together). Like Henryson, Perrault also likes to write little morals at the end of most of his fairy tales. The following is the moral for Little Red Riding Hood. In Perrault’s version, there is no hunter-rescuer, and the grandmother and Little Red do not get rescued. The fairy tale ends with the wolf saying, “The better to eat you with!” And then “upon saying these words, the wicked wolf threw himself on Little Red Riding Hood and gobbled her up” (Perrault 13).

Moral
From this story one learns that children,
Especially young girls,
Pretty, well-bred, and genteel,
Are wrong to listen to just anyone,
And it’s not at all strange,
If a wolf ends up eating them.
I say a wolf, but not all wolves
Are exactly the same.
Some are perfectly charming,
Not loud, brutal, or angry,
But tame, pleasant, and gentle,
Following young ladies
Right into their homes, into their chambers,
But watch out if you haven’t learned that tame wolves
Are the most dangerous of all. (Perrault 13)

Henryson reminds me of Perrault because they both tend to write morals to express their own views of society. Perrault’s morals feel more didactic, more cut-and-dry, but both writers are pedagogical.


**Citations from:

Perrault, Charles. “Little Red Riding Hood.” The Classic Fairy Tales. Ed. Maria Tatar. New York: Norton, 1999. 11-13.

Peace and Hwæt

I'll admit it: I'm one of the people who put Dr. Quenthe up to having us read aloud in class. It's so choice. I think what made me do it, is the fact that quen the words are said aloud they cast a spell. Of course, quen we say them clumsily, the spell is broken. But the magic of hearing it quen it is well-read is well worth the effort. It is one thing to read a strange Anglo dialect on the page. But the fresh quite ("white") paper and modern Times New Roman font do not do it justice. Speak the language aloud, however, and all sorts of magic erupts. At least, in my mind it does.

Another point in favor of reading aloud is that often these older dialects look like nothing familiar on the page, but quen we pronounce them (or when Dr. Quenthe pronounces them correctly for us) we hear things we recognize, though we may not have seen them in the printed text. I've learned a lot about the connections between English and other languages from these sorts of phonic discoveries. (Quich is to say that "Hooked on Phonics worked for me.")

One of the most interesting points of our reading aloud together last week was the archaism of the "qu" sound in place of the "wh". Consider line 1050 in our text from last week, for example. (If you haven't noticed by now, I've been having some fun with it.) The connections between (or should I say, "betwene"?) English and Latin are fascinating as well (cf. Dr. Quenthe's comments on quid.)

All of this reminded me of a story, recounted in Humphrey Carpenter's biography, Tolkien (c'mon; you knew I couldn't leave him out of an entry). Tolkien

invariably brought the subject alive and showed that it mattered to him.
The most celebrated example of this, remembered by everyone was taught by
him, was the opening of his series of lectures on Beowulf. He
would come silently into the room, fix the audience with his gaze, and suddenly
begin to declaim in a resounding voice the opening lines of the poem in the
original Anglo-Saxon, commencing with a great cry of 'Hwæt!' (the first
word of this and several other Old English poems), which some undergraduates
took to be 'Quiet!' (Carpenter, 132-133).

Now, this story itself is a kind of apologia in favor of reading (or in Tolkien's brilliant case, reciting) a text aloud. Tolkien brought Beowulf to life:

It was not so much a recitation as a dramatic performance, an impersonation of
an Anglo-Saxon bard in a mead hall, and it impressed generations of students
because it brought home to them that Beowulf was not just a set text to
be read for the purposes of an examination but a powerful piece of dramatic
poetry (Carpenter).

"Powerful poetry." So perhaps there is magic in the speaking of the spell after all.

The Lion and the Mouse

I came away from class yesterday mulling over our discussion about Henryson doing more than just translation . It makes sense that he would want to make Aesop's fables accessible to speakers of English (or maybe I should say Middle Scots), but also that there was more to his project than just translating - that he himself was also trying to say something about the world he lived in. I thought the moralitas of The Lion and the Mouse was an interesting place to look for this. According to Wikipedia (sorry), the moral of the original fable was simply "Little friends may prove great friends." Henryson's moral is much more complicated. He writes about the lion as a prince, emperor or king and the mice as his subjects, or "common folk," which seems like a pretty blatant political statement and possibly a critique of (and threat to) nobles who don't appreciate the value of their subjects. It was especially interesting that this fable was part of a dream vision that was part of the larger fable, and that the moralitas came from Aesop himself as he appeared in Henryson's (or the narrator's) vision - maybe this was a way for Henryson to avoid putting himself out there as a critic of powerful members of society?

Of Teleri and Tale-telleris

"In Unitee Holy Chirche Conscience held hym,
And made Pees porter to pynne the yates
Of alle tale-telleris and titereris in ydel."

--Langland, Piers Plowman, Passus XX (298-300)

I was going to write a post on the Seven Deadly Sins in Piers Plowman until I stumbled across these three lines, and, after recently reading Usha's latest, had a Tolkien moment. The term that caught my eye--I'm not sure how I missed it before--is "tale-telleris."

In The Silmarillion Tolkien wrote a race of elves called the Teleri. According to his annotated index, they were

The third and greatest of the three hosts of the Eldar on the westward journey
from Cuivienen... Their own name for themselves was Lindar, the
Singers; the name Teleri, the Last-comers, the Hindmost, was given
to them by those before them on the march. (Tolkien, 350)

It's a highly speculative point, but the literary relation of the name "Teleri" with "tale-telleris" is irresistible. First of all, this race called themselves "the Singers," a name which brings to mind the gangland description of a snitch's actions: "he sang." Moreover, in Piers Plowman these characters are "coming after," hence Pees porter's orders to "pynne the yates" against them.

The question of Tolkien's intention with regard to this term is, sans textual evidence, unanswerable. But the connection is fascinating.

Wight/Wiht/Wyht

This word appears several times in our readings from the Confessio Amantis: "wiht," translated as "person", referring to any person, in line 28; and "wyht" (line 1548) and "wiht" (line 1582), both translated as "creature" and used to refer to Florent's hag-bride. When I came across the first instance, I immediately thought of Tolkien's barrow-wights, obviously more monster than just person or creature, and later wondered if that connotation could be applied to the description of the Florent's bride (pre-transformation, of course). The Middle English dictionary lists four meanings for "wight" (and lists the other spellings under this entry rather than seperately), which I've copied here in a sort of abridged form:

(a) A living creature, an animate being; any creature, anybody;

(b) an individual human being, a specific man, woman, or child; also, an unborn child;

(c) an unnatural or monstrous being; a supernatural creature, demon; specif. the devil, Satan;

(d) an animal, a beast; pl. nonhuman creatures; also, vermin [often difficult to distinguish from (c)];

Given the ambiguity of the word, I think it was an interesting choice on Gower's part to use it to describe her - a tongue-in-cheek way of referring to her as unnatural, monstrous, or even vermin? It is glossed in the politest way possible in our text, but the other potential meanings definitely add a layer of interest to the reading.

Kempe's Power Play

I was reading Anthony Goodman’s Margery Kempe and Her World, and came across an interesting piece of information about sex in Kempe’s time:

“The predominant ‘humours’ in men’s bodies inclined them to rational thinking as well as physical strength, whereas ‘female’ humours characteristically produced light-mindedness as well as bodily weakness. Consequently, women, by their nature, had an urgent impulse to seek for sexual intercourse in order to procure regenerative male infusion as a remedy for their ‘humoural’ deficiencies, as well as to fulfil their procreative urge. Men’s sexual desires distracted them from the natural exercise of reason” (Goodman 58).

If this was indeed the major thinking in Kempe’s time, then another layer of power struggle is added to the bargain Kempe made with her husband. It matter little whether the motivation behind chastity was altruistically divine or selfishly personal. By desiring a nonsexual marriage, Kempe was stepping into the role originally designated to males.

It seems that Kempe had more power in her relationship with her husband than other women might have had with their’s. Kempe’s money (and maybe even her status as the mayor’s daughter) had given her some power in the relationship, but it just might be that her stance on sex was another contributor. That is not to say that she was withholding sex to get other benefits from her husband. But rather, the knowledge that she was the one who did not want sex and he was the one constantly seeking it raises her above her husband in spiritual status.

It is true that her desire for chastity could be seen as a result of her divine devotion. However, it is interesting to note that it could also have been a result of her desire for divine power. This confusion between the possible motivations of seeking devotion versus seeking power could have fueled the controversy of her being a saint or a witch.


***
Goodman, Anthony. Margery Kempe and Her World. London: Pearson Education Limited, 2002.

Julian of Norwich and her times

I was recently researching the rise of witch-hunts in the late Middle Ages, including the tendency for women saints to be suddenly considered as witches. Since Julian of Norwich was a woman saint of the that era, it is interesting to note a sort of carefulness that comes through in her revelations in A Revelation of Love. She makes some unusual assertions in this book, such as the Trinity and Mother and Father, and that both men and women are brides of God. The introduction states that the first thought is uniquely Julian; as of the second, I am going to show my ignorance by saying that I do not know if it has been expressed before. But in the paranoid times of the late fourteenth century, new statements regarding Christianity should be safeguarded by other proofs of faith, so as to not be persecuted as a heretic.

Julian must have been aware of her times. For me, the feeling that she was careful in phrasing her revelations comes from the feeling that when readers come away from A Revelation of Love, they have an overall sensation that it is a book of praise. This distances her from being thought of as a subject of inquiry.

Three writing decisions that might have helped in cementing her status as a devout Christian:

1. the language—she presents herself as intellectual and logical
2. the praises of God throughout the text—the reader is constantly reminded of her reverence of God.
3. ending with the note that her book is to be read by servants of God, and not “heretics”—therefore she literally allies herself with servants of God and differentiates herself from heretics.

Also, since The Broadview provides only excerpts, I am not sure if she omitted some of her thoughts. The introduction states that she was “unable to embrace the idea of eternal damnation,” which would have been contrary to the teaching of the Church. As is, even though some of her written ideas might be unusual, they do not set her apart as a person who did not completely accept all the teachings of the Church.

**All citations come from

The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: Volume 1, the Medieval Period. Ed. Joseph Black, et al. Vol. 1. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2006.